Through the beauty of single-entity, they are. The beauty of SEM is that all of the profits and losses are heaped together and each team gets a share of the spoils, such as they are. I think that the advertising budgets are separate and probably the front office payrolls too, but I'm not sure about that. I suppose that some merchandise might be separate as some teams have more stuff to sell than others. But in general, the costs of player salaries, game day operating expenses, and official MLS merchandise sales are all lumped together into one bucket for accounting purposes. So although some teams are operating at a profit, or have in the past, they get a full share of the other teams losses. This may well be part of why Horowitz bailed out. Not only was he not sure he'd ever make a profit, but he was eating some of NYJ and El-Lay's losses. In any case, El-Lay's salary numbers have always been higher than ours, especially if you ignore the bogus $280k limit (or max limit as it was lower in the beginning). Square Head and Louisa cost them something like $8 million. No chance have the Quakes run up bill that even approach El-Lay's profligate spending. As for Ruiz, I didn't think that his deal (where his previous club still pays a fair fraction of his salary) was common? Before SissyNarcissusBoy came to MLS, the league was against any sort of sharing arrangement. I wouldn't think that there are very many of those contracts. But I could be wrong. Of course, if we never sell Ruiz's contract to a big Euro club, them his former club are getting screwed. I wonder what the liability is on that?! GO QUAKES!! - Mark
In the NFL, all profits from merchandise like jerseys is distributed equally among all the teams no matter which team sells more.
Yow! I haven't been on the board since this thread started, and now I see what Ray Hudson and the gang on American Soccer were talking about last night--basically that the sh!t and fur would start flying after the release of these figures.
One thing that baffles me after comparing the lists for last year and this year is how The Beast took a pay cut this year, and a significant one at that. Especially when out backup keeper got an increase, as did Russell, whom most of us would argue has a negligible place on the bench (and whom I would say might be overpaid, given his importance to the team, in the first place).
Hah! Someone else brought this up first. I decided to keep my keyboard quiet on this one since I'm probably the biggest Russel troll on this board and when you rag on someone too much, your opinion is devalued... I'll just say that this is probably the biggest injustice on the 'Quakes payroll.
Justice really has little to do with how much you are paid in any company. In large corporations, like Oracle or Microsoft, person A might make three times what person B is making, even when they are doing the same jobs. And the difference might be far larger among the higher level administrators. Revealing salaries is always bad news. No one thinks that a person making too much should get their pay reduced - they always think that their pay should be increaed to match the high value. There is a reason why most companies guard the numbers so well.
Your right to assume I thought Ian made too much rather than the rest not making enough... But I'm looking at more like this: Given the percentage of each players portion of the total team compensation cost, then apply that same perportion to my $18/game season ticket cost. I don't even want to know what Ian's portion works out too. I would rather be paid to watch him... (the injustice is on me ) Maybe Moreno need to give Ian's agent a call
I don't know whether someone else already responded to this because I haven't finished reading all the posts, but the league max is about the same. The reason some players can be paid more is because a team has an allocation. They can choose how to break it up, but an allocation allows them to spend more than the league max for certain players. The reason that the Gals can afford Donovan's extra is because they traded players for allocation $. If a team has no allocation, then they can't pay any player more than the max. As far as the salaries, it is almost impossible for the guys to afford to live in places that most of the teams are located on the measly salaries that they are paid. Even first round players are not paid more than $30 their first year. And to get that, they must be picked in the first four of the college players. If # 5-8, they get alittle less and then everyone else the league minimum. Most of the guys have to room together or stay at home with their folks. Married guys' wives almost always have to work too. As far as them being able to coach teams on the side - with their travel schedules and being gone most weekends - they can't get many coaching jobs. During the summer, when most camps are held, they are still in season and most camps are during the day when they train. Another job is almost out of the question.
A recent article about the Quakes developmental players has one of them (Robbie Fulton, I think) saying that coaching pays well in the Bay Area, and they get by with that. So they must find a way to do it. He said they're not saving money, but getting by. Also said that four of the guys share a 4-bedroom townhouse.
Poor(literally) Moreno.....making that little.....living in LA and the Bay Area. At least Ruiz' 40k will go a little further in Texas. As much as I hate Ruiz....I honestly feel bad for a guy that is a draw like Ruiz is....and he produces. Say what you will about Ruiz.....you don't see the guy holding out, I never heard of him complaining.....I've seen 2nd string NFL special teams players hold out cuz their 2.1 million should be 2.15 million.
I think you're both right.....for the guys who travel with the team, it is harder to handle the coaching assignments with the travel schedule, but not impossible. But for the developmental players, most aren't travelling, so they have the time to do coaching. Even the ones who travel, remember that usually they are only gone a couple weekdays every other week (assuming every other game is on the road, and most games are Saturdays). This month is bad for the Quakes, with their travel schedule, but then next month they are mostly around. Remember, while they are around, the Quakes normally have one or two weekdays off, and their practices are in the mornings so they have time in the afternoon/evenings to coach or do something else. Still not a way to get rich, that's for sure!
The Ruiz figure, if correct, is the most surprising of all of them. But at least it explains A. Moreno's salary (Hamilton to Moreno: "Wulll, you don't score as many goals as Carlos, and he makes 40k"). I wonder if Ruiz has some monstrous incentives or something built into his contract, or some endorsement deals tied to him playing in MLS or something. 40k just doesn't make sense. Anyway, now that the figures are public I hope it sends Ruiz into a prolonged fit or causes him to go permanently AWOL. On the other hand, I think the Quakes have a shot at catching Dallas even with Ruiz. It'd be that much more of a challenge and all that much sweeter if they can do it.
I saw on the Dallas boards that Ruiz is also getting about $40k from his other team, so it's not quite as bad as it looks. On the Quakes catching Dallas, it sure would be sweet - the Quakes with ZERO All Stars catching Dallas, the team with SIX All Stars.
It pays quite well for training the Danville/Blackhawk youth.......1/2 of the Quakes would make more from full time youth training and than for playing for the Quakes.
Yeah, there's a lot of money in the Bay Area, if you can just figure out how to extract some of it. Things involving youth are good, because people in general are not averse to spending large amounts of money on their kids. Do some of these guys do private or semi-private coaching too? I could see that happening especially for the goalkeepers like Robbie Fulton. Being a reserve pro soccer player is like being a musician. The gigs are too far-between and don't pay well (unless you're a big-time rock star), so most everyone makes ends meet by teaching/coaching. Now if we can just figure out how to extract enough of all that Bay Area money to buy a soccer team and fund an SSS...
Not really. Ruiz is a "shared" player. That is, his former team still owns about half of his contract. So if MLS sells him to a big Euro club, his former club get's 50% of the transfer fee. Or something like that. I don't MLS or anyone else has ever published the details, but it's something like that. His old club owns a fraction of his contract and they get that fraction of the transfer fee if he moves to another league. Of course, if he stays in MLS they are getting screwed. GO QUAKES!! - Mark
Ahhhh.....interesting.....thanks! So he is getting 40k a year from someone that hopes he goes to europe for a transfer fee that will be at least more than twice the money they've paid him since he's been in MLS....since they will have to split it with MLS.
That may be true, but there are still substantial differences between different metro areas. Most big companies have various pay scales for each position, depending on location, and the SF Bay Area is always in the top category (along with NYC, for example). I don't have exact figures, but I wouldn't be surprised if players in KC, Dallas, Denver or Salt Lake City could be paid 1/2 what San Jose players are paid and still live about as comfortably.
Agree on the concept; my company does exactly what you describe. The way the calculations work are looking at salaries in each area, not necessarily at the cost of living itself. And the data usually looks at an area around the city, about 30-40 miles around the area. The result is that there is not as big of a difference as you would expect, because salaries don't go up directly in proportion to the cost of living. But, there is a pretty signficant difference. Looking at the salary pay range tables that my company uses (a high tech company), the MLS cities/regions kind of group into 3 categories: Highest cost/salaries: New Jersey/New York, San Jose, Chicago, DC, Boston. Second level cities: Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas Third level cities: Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Columbus These salaries reflect the competition for high tech workers, so they may be skewed a bit (for example, Denver is starting to get a lot more competition for high tech workers, so salaries are going higher, but the cost of living probably isn't really as high as LA....LA is not as expensive to live as some people think, really depends on where you live). Anyway, the point is well taken - as it stands, MLS players who play on teams in the most expensive regions listed above certainly can't stretch their money anywhere near as far as those in the other 6 cities.
"Scott Tann: Counter-productive Salary Cap" http://www.matchnight.com/?Page=TANN A pretty good article recently posted on MatchNight on salary cap and how MLS says one thing but do another. MLS will never be a major league the way they claim if it keeps operating that way.
Thanks for the link nivla. So, based on this article, the "Cap" as it is, is set at $1.8M for this year. I'm assuming losgatosfan's calculations on Chicago are slightly off (or else Chicago has cut someone who was listed on the spreadsheet), otherwise they are over the cap. And our friends from LA are officially "under the cap", within the rules as they are defined. They make use of the $280k maximum salary counted toward the cap with Donovan, but they also seem to have gotten some pretty good deals on some of the SI's they signed. I'm sure everyone already realized it, but LA definitely had to trade Califf to San Jose to be under the cap with Donovan. So the rumors about the deal being a bit rigged may not be so far-fetched.....